Album Review: Quiet Places by Andreas Vollenweider (8/10)

Label: MIG Music Germany

Score: 8/10

Thirty-three years after a Grammy for his groundbreaking album Down to the Moon cemented his legend as a master at fusing new age, jazz and world music, Swiss electroacoustic harpist Andreas Vollenweider launches his next phase with Quiet Places – an intimate, melodically eloquent, rhythmically eclectic and classically tinged set of vibrant exotic dances and introspective meditations. Creating dreamy, lushly textured soundscapes with his ensemble of pianist Isabel Gehweiler and drummer Walter Keizer, Vollenweider expounds musically on the themes of his upcoming first novel Reflection of Venus and sets the stage for the next two albums in a conceptual trilogy.